


Constellations

by prizewinningfruitcake



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 05:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prizewinningfruitcake/pseuds/prizewinningfruitcake
Summary: Isabela is bored, and Merrill is smooth in her own way.





	Constellations

“Not a word from any of you,” Isabela says to Anders and Varric as she drops dramatically, _flounces_ , into the booth next to Merrill. The drinks in her hands slosh and foam, spill over onto her arm when she does and she swears.

Anders smirks and Varric shrugs. Isabela slides four silver coins across the table. They’re always betting on something. 

“What’s it for?” The question pops out, flies out, like questions tend to do, from her.

Bela says, “Don’t worry about it, Kitten, I’ll tell you later.”

Merrill likes Kitten. Normally she doesn’t like being called cute, but kittens are lively and devious as well. Soft, but with claws and teeth. 

That’s how it sounds from her, anyway. It doesn’t sound the same if someone else uses it. Once Hawke did, just repeating her - “Yes, Kitten, where _did_ you set my drink?” - but it just made him sound creepy. Judging by the musing smirk he gave right after he said it, he thought so too.

It’s quiet tonight, just Anders and Varric and them, elbow-to-elbow, and Isabela is restless. She’s moving, shifting, putting her hair up, taking it down again, running a finger over her collarbone.

She’s the most beautiful woman Merrill’s ever seen. There are beautiful women in Kirkwall, stately women, who curl their hair and wear those contraptions that squeeze their chests together, but no one looks like Isabela. 

No one feels like her either. She’s soft, so soft but so strong when she hugs, arms tight, and she smells fantastic somehow always. Even when they’ve been running and fighting, covered in dirt and sweat. She likes the smell of her even then. 

She can have anyone she wants.

“Ugh,” Bela grouses into her drink as Varric lays out his Wicked Grace deck, “No more cards.”

Varric smiles and says, “Don’t have the stomach to lose any more coin?”

He says that because he thinks it will get her to play. It’s a challenge.

Bela doesn’t take it. “What I don’t have the stomach for is another night slumped over a table like rewarmed death. Why don’t we - I don’t know - go be reckless and _alive_ out under the stars, or something?”

They all speak at once. 

Anders says, “Don’t you already get enough recklessness-”

Varric says, “Not our fault you couldn’t get-”

Merrill says, “We could go up to the roof.”

“The roof?”

Isabela turns in her seat to look at her. 

Merrill nods, warmed suddenly by honey colored eyes bright from torchlight. Edwina has a key.

Edwina’s curt at first, to most people, but she likes Merrill - perhaps because she complimented her hair when they first met. In any case, she showed Merrill the key once and invited her to use it any time she needed “to get away.” 

Merrill isn’t entirely certain if this is what she meant by that, but she smiles and waves at her when she slides the key off its ring, and Edwina waves back from the other side of the bar. 

“You didn’t have to go through all that, Kitten, I could have just picked it,” Bela says, leaning against the wall as she furtively slips the key in the lock. 

Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to her, but she’s glad of it, because she likes seeing her standing there, shifting her weight from one hip to the other, waiting. 

Waiting for her, the keeper of a good and secret thing. 

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Merrill says, and holds the door open. 

She closes it as quietly as she can behind them. Climbing the ladder behind her, she likes that too.

It’s quiet up here and very dark. She hadn’t realized how late it is. She looks around for a moment, adrift in the sheer emptiness of the space.

“There’s not much place to sit, is there?” she says, a sigh, an apology. 

“Nonsense,” Isabela says.

It’s not much for reckless, but they can see the stars, at least, speckled impossibly bright and close above them. 

Isabela leans over the edge, over the Lowtown streets below, then lifts herself to sit. 

She leans on her hands and tosses her head back. “Do Dalish have names for stars?”

“Yes!” Merrill wishes she didn’t squeak so much on her answer. “Wait, you mean constellations?”

Bela nods. “Those are the shapes people see in the stars, right?”

“Right. Sailors know constellations, don’t they?”

“Some do,” she says, still looking up, “but everyone has their own, so it’s not very useful.” She points behind Merrill’s head. “I know those bright ones just there are meant to be Draconis.”

Merrill sits next to her. “I’ve not heard of that one,” she says. 

“It’s a dragon. So they say. I can’t really see it; I just see two of them are brighter than the others.”

“Oh,” Merrill sighs, “So they don’t guide you? I’d always heard sailors found their way by the stars.”

“Maybe proper sailors do.”

She’s being modest. She’s like that when they’re alone. She would never say something like that around the others.

“There’s Fen’Harel over there.”

“That’s the wolf guy?”

Merrill has told her enough about this to fill at least a volume on Dalish lore. 

“Yes,” Merrill laughs, “the wolf guy.”

She remembered. 

“I think that one’s called Fenrir too, in some places.”

“Like Fenris?”

She nods. “I wouldn’t mind having Fenris up there, pointing me home.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Merrill says, then slopes shoulders and draws eyebrows together the way Fenris does. “That way, you halfwit.”

Bela laughs - a good laugh, a real one. When Bela laughs, she does it big and sloppy, with her hand on her belly, and she never tries to hide it. 

“Kitten, that was such a good Fenris.” She wipes the corner of her eye delicately. “Oh, Maker.”

There’s a chill, but Merrill is warm all over. Having her there, just being near her - Elgar’nan, it’s probably completely obvious, like how Fenris looks at Hawke. 

But if it is, she doesn’t seem to mind.

It’s not much for reckless, no danger up here, but they’re not playing Wicked Grace over lukewarm pints. This is different.

Isabela looks up and Merrill looks at her looking up, careful, from the corner of her eye. The dip between her chin and her throat curves deep when she holds her head like that and it would be such a nice spot to kiss, to touch with fingertips.

Then she snaps back down to look at her. She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t say anything. 

Her lips are full and dark, and Merrill wants to kiss her, wants her mouth on hers. 

There’s too much air in her chest. “What were you betting on?” she asks. “With Anders and Varric?”

“Oh,” Bela looks away, down. She smiles a little, murmurs, “Curious kitten.”

Merrill shrugs and internally curses herself for asking. “I can’t help it.”

“Did you see that man with the long hair by the bar? I bet I could get him to buy me drinks.” She looks up again, at her. “I couldn’t.”

“Oh.” 

Suddenly there’s not enough air in her chest. 

Bela smiles a little again, that mysterious almost sad little half-smile. 

“That doesn’t seem right,” she says slowly. “I can’t imagine anyone not… wanting to… “

Bela laughs, good-natured. “You’re sweet, but I can. I’m an old wench.”

“No you’re not!” 

It comes out far too shrill, and draws another laugh from her.

“It’s alright, sweet thing, it doesn’t hurt my feelings. It was just silly.” She shifts to face her better. “Having men want to buy you things comes with its own problems, trust me.”

She says it doesn’t hurt, but something raw passes behind her eyes, and Merrill doesn’t know what to say, so she takes her two braceleted forearms into her two hands and holds them firm. 

Bela takes a breath. She’s surprised her, but she doesn’t pull away. She lets her hold on like that, dips forward for their foreheads to touch. 

Creators, she smells so good. Close and warm, and her chest is going to explode but she moves closer, closer, until their lips barely touch. Bela presses back, light and unhurried, hands moving to grip her back.

Merrill finds that spot below her chin, strokes it with her thumb.

She pulls back enough to tell her, “You can bet on me next time.”


End file.
